Ghosts and Shadows
by Victoria LeRoux
Summary: One-shot. Pre MOA, post SON. Clarisse called it the thousand yard stare. Annabeth called it acute stress reaction. Either way, Percy thinks it's probably accurate; too often he finds himself staring at the past, remembering.


Title: Ghosts and Shadows  
><span>Author<span>: Victoria Leroux  
><span>Rating<span>: K+  
><span>Chapter WC<span>: 1102  
><span>Story WC<span>: 1102  
><span>First Written<span>: December 23, 2011  
><span>Last Edited<span>: December 23, 2011  
><span>Posted<span>: December 23, 2011  
><span>Disclaimer<span>: This is a work of fiction. This work has not been endorsed by any holding copyright or license to the book series _Percy Jackson and the Olympians_. No connection is implied or should be inferred. Other names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author receives no financial gain from its production or distribution.

Summary: One-shot. Pre MOA, post SON. Clarisse called it the thousand yard stare. Annabeth called it acute stress reaction. Either way, Percy thinks it's probably accurate; too often he finds himself staring at the past, remembering.

Author's Sanity Update: I wanted to do a full PTSD fanfic, but I'll wait until after MOA, at least. I don't have the time now with my other (desolate looking) fics. I'm also in the midst of another PJO fic… sooo. Yeah.

I will admit, I've probably received more than enough inspiration from other fanfics for HP with this one, but hopefully it's not too much alike those. Now I need to get to work on my BN fic. Please review?

Ghosts and Shadows

Usually Percy knows what's reality and what's fiction.

Sometimes though, he makes ghosts out of the shadows dancing on the wall. Annabeth's confirmed it for months. It obvious it's true and she's right, but his paranoia still keeps him ready for battle. Her words don't stop her from seeing things from his peripheral vision and pulling Riptide at anything suspicious.

Clarisse says she's seen it before. She calls it the thousand yard stare, when they talk over Iris Message late at night when her siblings are fighting and he can't sleep. Annabeth diagnoses it, saying it's a variation of acute stress reaction. Eith way, Percy things it's probably accurate; too often he finds himself staring at the shadows, remembering what's happened and what could have been.

He's never really been able to deal with it. He and Annabeth had started talking over it, working through his issues when it came to reliving battles when the wrong movement startled him, but they never got the opportunity to finish because Hera swept in and dumped him with Lupa. The wolf helped train him, yes, taught him dissociation…

But sometimes the emotion sweep in at the wrong moment, and he's no longer sparring with Frank but he's fighting with Luke again.

He'll watch the fire late at night and his entire body will lock down, remembering lava and volcanoes and _death_ and Calypso…

Percy sometimes finds himself woken up in the middle of the night, disgruntled mutters around him as his nightmares jerk others from sleep.

He's tried to talk to others about it, and only a few of them get it.

Surprisingly, it's not Chiron who can explain things to him, despite centuries of training heroes to die for Olympus, but it's the kids in the Ares cabin, and the Apollo cabin who know all too well what he speaks of.

The Apollo kids have seen it before on campers they've treated. They say that Luke used to be like that, before he turned. The counselor takes Percy to the side and explains that Thalia was like that between being changed back to human and turning hunter.

It's normal, they say, but Percy wonders. If _Luke_ and _Thalia_ couldn't handle it – and Percy will even admit that he respects what Luke was like before he turned traitor – then what chance does he stand?

He doesn't voice it out loud, but instead turns to the Ares kids. They don't question him when he spaces in the middle of a sparring match, and they don't laugh when he fights less and less with people who trained with Luke. They might hate his guts, but they respect him nonetheless.

So he trains with them, and they don't mock him for it. They'll mock him for his shoes, his footwork, and even the way he holds his sword, but never that.

Percy wonders how much the gods have screwed with his life. He knows how many strange occurrences he's seen over the years, he knows how many of them are related to monsters and the like. Yet still… he wonders how many _normal_, average, _everyday_ things they've influenced.

He looks. He asks his mom, he goes to his father. He examines his memories for similarities to gods and creatures he's seen, he even talked to _Nico_ before the kid disappeared, and he finds it disturbing. So many ordinary things that should have been just could easily be evidence that he's been watched all his life.

But that's the problem, he realizes – they are.

His babysitter when he was four was just a high school girl who needed a few bucks. His teachers were just teachers. There's no evidence that beyond a few scattered incidents here and there, and his mom is forced to tell him that he's just chasing shadows.

He wonders why he's turned so paranoid. He finds it harder and harder to truth those outside of the ones he's quested with, and he wonders if he would have turned out that way without Lupa's influence. He has to admit that probably he would have – the War changed something within him, and he knows that there's no going back.

Maybe it was the Styx that did him in the end.

Achilles' had started to go crazy near the end. He'd disobeyed the gods' laws and disrespected Hector's body. A one-way guarantee to Hades's realm.

Percy wonders if someday, he's going to snap.

He has to keep working, he knows. He has to dance to the gods' tune, and he needs to know that there's a reason he can't keep his human life and demigod life separate from one another.

So he keeps chasing shadows, like he's always done.

He has a feeling he always will.


End file.
